1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an implantable device system comprising an implantable medical device, an external transceiver device and a service center.
The implantable medical device preferably is an implantable pacemaker or an implantable cardioverter/defibrillator (ICD), or a device for cardiac resynchronization (CRT-D).
2. Description of the Related Art
Implantable medical devices are very complex products consisting of energy sources (batteries), electronic modules with one or more micro-processors, embedded software running on those processors, high voltage units (in ICD and CRT-D), memory IC's, IC for signal detection, IC for signal analysis (DSP), components for therapy, component for communication, storage for therapeutic fluids (drug pumps) and others. Even so the reliability of those implantable medical devices is in general very high, failures may potentially happen, especially for highly complex implantable medical devices with long service times of more than 1 year.
The specific problem of medical devices is that due to their constraints of size and service-time often real redundancy is not possible, e.g. if the high voltage units in ICD fail, there is not a second set of high voltage capacitors to compensate for the failure. However, most of the time the implantable medical device does not have to support life critical functions permanently. Therefore, to increase the safety for the patients, it is more than appropriate to detect the failure early enough and mitigate the problem before a life critical support is necessary.